Jazz Musicians as Not Refle

[WillL at fieldschool.com]

Jazz Musicians as Not Reflective?
To pynchon-l at sfu.ca


I know this is getting far afield, but I have to jump in on
the jazz sub-thread that's developing here.  To say, as
Chris Stolz did, that "Coltrane, Monk, Parker -- these men
made brilliant, beautiful music . . . . They just did it, no
self-reflection necessary" is, I think, to perpetuate an
unpleasant clichŽ about jazz (and other blues-based
American) musicians.  These guys didn't just wake up one day
and start "naturally" blowing bebop.  They were serious and
thoughtful musicians with a keen awareness not only of
musical theory and history but also of their culture and
time.  When Coltrane titled a seething but meditative
composition "Alabama" in early sixties, he wasn't just
yearning for home, foax.  While this comment applies also to
many earlier jazz musicians (Ellington and Armstrong most
notably), the boppers and their descendants (who appear most
frequently in Pynchon's texts) are particularly
"self-conscious."  I'd say that a guy who named one of his
tunes "Ornithology" because his nickname was "bird" had some
self-consciousness, for better or worse.

I think its easy to make the mistake of thinking that the
great jazz musicians were "naturals" because their music is
so seamless and flowing and, of course, improvised.  I'd say
this is good way to sum up TRP's writing too; it comes
across (at times) as Kerouac-ian in its flow, but we all
know that is one of Pynchon's great skills:  to look
spontaneous while being really very studied.

On the rock note:  if TRP were me (which is, we've now
concluded, what this is all about, right?) he'd find the
Beach Boys to be the worst kind of style over substance. 

Cheers,

Will Layman (formerly WKLJAZZ at aol.com Ñ now receiving
pynchon-l at school)